


Snowfall

by lea_hazel



Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Framing Story, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Past Relationship(s), Rebels, Revaire, Revaire Coup, Sister-Sister Relationship, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-04-25 00:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14366994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: The complete personal history of Allegra Katherine Chase, and the people who made her who she is.The framing device is Allegra and Clarmont's return from Vail Isle to Revaire, but the bulk of the story is about the years before, beginning with her childhood.





	1. Introduction

For a girl from a good family, there were two questions which were of insurmountable importance to her future, for better or worse. The first of these was the question of marriage, and in Allegra Chase's experience, it was often for the worse. Her three year marriage to Quentin Dawnview, Baron Namaire, was remarkably successful by her account, but it had been an act of necessity, not love. She had arranged the matter herself, with an eye to to the pragmatic, as she often managed her family's affairs. Quentin had never seemed to mind the mercenary bent to Allegra's character, which was all for the best. He'd been under no more illusions than her when it came to the motivations underlying their arrangement.

He died at the age of sixty five, leaving Allegra Dawnview, then twenty one years old, in possession of the ancestral home of the Dawnview family. Much of the wealth of Namaire had reverted to the Crown upon Quentin's death, for the lack of a suitable male heir, but his will had stipulated that Dawnview house and the grounds surrounding it would fall to the care of his widow. This left Allegra in a state of financial freedom beyond anything she had previously experienced, to say nothing of the freedom of movement and action afforded to a childless widow. These gifts she was determined to put to best use, as soon as the mourning period for her late husband was over.

Allegra's second marriage was another matter altogether. She had crossed the sea in search of a better situation for herself. In search, to be perfectly crassly honest about it, of a crown. The life of a Dowager Baroness had treated her well, but Allegra was a cunning and ambitious woman, and her ambitions far exceeded what her fractured homeland could provide her. She left Revaire not intending to return. Plans, however, are made for breaking, and it only took two weeks of the summit's seven before Allegra neatly demolished all of hers. She had planned on a crown, she had planned against settling, she had planned to reach for everything that she had believed since childhood that she deserved. She had not planned on falling in love.

Nonetheless, she found herself returning to Revaire with her betrothed, and it was on their return journey together that the second question finally surfaced. They had neatly avoided it for weeks, and it had been almost easy. Too much was happening at the same time, and there was always more work to be done. Allegra felt as though she hadn't gotten a full night's sleep in seven weeks. All the same, it was too important to be put off any longer, and so, uncomfortable or not, she felt it was her duty to bring the matter up herself.

"There is something we haven't discussed," she said, as they stood together on the deck, watching Vail Isle fade into the mists in the early morning light.

Clarmont sighed. "I know."

"Such a sigh!" said Allegra. "We can talk about it tomorrow, if you'd rather. If you need some additional time to steel yourself for such a serious conversation."

"You're making fun of me," said Clarmont accusingly.

"Only a little bit," she said.

"It can't be put off much longer," he said.

"I was just thinking the very same thing," said Allegra.

"Let's not put it off, then," said Clarmont.

"Do you want to have children?" she asked.

He sighed again, more deeply. " _Want_ doesn't always enter into it, Allegra. Responsibility does."

"I hope I have never been called irresponsible," she said. "People of our class require heirs. I'm well aware of that. My first marriage, if you'll recall."

"I recall," he said.

"You can ask, if you like," she replied. "If it's you, I don't mind."

"Ask what?" asked Clarmont with a frown.

"Why I never had children in my first marriage," answered Allegra. "My husband married more for the purpose of providing him an heir, after all, at least as far as anyone knows. I failed to do as much, for three years no less, and yet he didn't set me aside."

"For three years," he said.

"I used preventatives," said Allegra.

"I didn't mean to pry," said Clarmont.

"I told you," said Allegra patiently. "If it's you, it's not prying."

"Wait," said Clarmont, frowning again. " _As far as anyone knows_? Sounds like there's a story there."

"You could say that," said Allegra, "and I'll tell you all about it, but not right now."

"Fair enough," he said. "Allegra, have you thought about having children?"

"Continually," said Allegra, "since I was seven years old."

"Seven?" asked Clarmont, raising an eyebrow.

"When my brother Nicholas was born," she answered. "Four girls, and he was the first boy. I never told you that story, either, did I?"

"I have a feeling," said Clarmont, "that there are many stories you haven't told me."

"We'd best find a comfortable place to sit, then," she said. "This tale might run a little long."


	2. The Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Allegra was seven years old, her mother gave birth to a baby boy.

A lady’s first duty was to marry well. Once married, her first duty to her husband was to provide him with a son. She’d known this all her life. So long, in fact, that it was hard for her to imagine a time when she didn’t know it, although she was rationally aware that it must exist. Her mother Flora had not taken great pains to educate her daughters on the duties of a highborn lady, having herself married for love, but her father’s mother felt differently. It was she who made certain that Allegra and all her sisters were brought up with an awareness of the dignity suitable to daughters of an ancient noble line, going back all the way to the twilight years of the old empire.

“And it seems,” said Katherine Chase one night to her favorite grandchild, “that your mother has gone and done her duty, at last.”

“What?” asked Allegra, throwing off her covers and rubbing her eyes with her fists.

“You have a baby brother,” said her grandmother. “Would you like to see him? No, no, let the little ones sleep. I’m only taking you because you’re the oldest.”

Even through the haze of her sudden midnight awakening, Allegra glowed with pride.

She followed her grandmother from the nursery down to her mother's bedroom, where maids and midwives were milling around. Her father sat slumped in an overstuffed chair just outside the door, leaning against the wall and quietly snoring. The door to the bedroom was open a crack.

"Should we wake him?" asked Allegra.

Grandmother Katherine glanced down at her eldest son's slumped form and said, shortly, "Don't bother."

The door opened a little wider, and a maid rushed out, carrying a bundle of linens. Allegra rose on her tiptoes to try and see what was in her arms. When her grandmother slapped her shoulder, she relented and sank down to her feet.

Katherine pointed at the door. "Go in and see your mother, Allegra."

She entered the room, and found her mother looking smaller and paler than she ever remembered her looking before, drowning among the heaped bed linen. Her hair was mussed and stuck to her sweaty forehead in clumps. She smiled faintly at her.

"Katie," she asked, "do you want to see your baby brother?"

After a moment's hesitation, she climbed up onto the bed and crawled to where her mother was lying.

Flora pushed herself up to a sitting position with one hand, the other arm cradling a bundle of blankets.

Allegra reached over and pushed away a fold of cloth so she could see her baby brother's face.

"Four girls in a row," said Katherine from the doorway, "and now, finally, an heir."

But Flora's joy in her newborn son could not be dimmed by her mother-in-law's words, and she beamed at Allegra proudly. "Isn't he beautiful?"

Allegra looked down at the tiny baby in her arms, with his wrinkled little face all red. She thought for a moment, and nodded. Then she asked, "What's his name?"

"We haven't decided yet," said her mother.

Katherine scoffed.

"Why don't you pick it out, my love?" said Flora to her eldest daughter.

"Me?" asked Allegra.

"Of course, you, silly!" said Flora. "Aren't you my firstborn daughter? I don't _think_ I have another."

Allegra giggled. "I wouldn't know what to choose."

"Well, then, think about it," said her mother, "and let me know what you decided in the morning."

"Come here, girl," said her grandmother. "It's time for you to go back to bed. Your mother needs her rest, and so does the baby."

Allegra took one last look at her baby brother, and then clambered off the bed and ran to her grandmother's side.

"Tomorrow," said Flora, sinking back into the heaped pillows.

She nodded, and then obediently went back to her bed in the nursery.

In the morning, the nurses came up to wake the girls, bathe and clothe them, and take them down to breakfast. Their father was at the table, silently sipping black tea with sunken, sleep-shadowed eyes. So, too, was their grandmother, stern and immaculate as always. If birthing her own four children could not have rattled Katherine Chase's iron nerves, then surely the birth of a grandchild would do no better.

"Where'th Mama?" asked Ellie.

Katherine looked at her unresponsive son, his eyes still fixed on his own teacup. She sighed softly, and shot a quick, sharp glance in Allegra's direction.

Allegra got the message immediately. She grabbed Ellie in one hand and Scarlet in the other and tugged them both to the breakfast table.

"Sit _down_ ," she said, pushing them both at their chairs.

Once the girls were all arrayed around the table, and their napkins neatly folded over their laps, she gave them the news.

"Mama has had a baby boy," she said.

Scarlet looked up from pouring honey into her porridge. "What's his name, Katie?"

"Nicholas," said Allegra decisively, as though she had decided on the name weeks before, and had only needed to fetch it from the back of her mind.

"Nicky!" said Scarlet, suddenly animated.

"Nicholas," said Allegra again, more adamantly.

"Nicky?" asked Ellie, turning away from her to look at Scarlet, sitting beside her.

Allegra looked at the two of them, and then turned to look at little Ursula, who just stared back at her with big, dark eyes.

"Hith name ith Nicky, Katie," said Ellie, and, turning to face Katherine, added, "Grandmother, did you hear that we have a baby brother?"

Allegra sighed. It was probably a lost cause.


	3. The Convent

Old blood families did not fare well in Revaire, after the coup. Allegra knew this much, intellectually at least. However much she might say, to the right listener, about the circumstances of her early life, this was one thing she had been sheltered from. Not that the war left her untouched. No one in Revaire was, not even in Wellmark, not even in Arrowfield, the ancestral estate of the Chase family, which traced back an unbroken lineage to the days of the old Revaire empire. Long before Wellish warlords broke off to form their own cities to the East and upstart merchant princes began to nibble at its Southern border.

"Thank God your grandfather is not alive to see this," said her grandmother to Allegra one night.

She'd been eight years old then. Whatever trouble had been brewing in the kingdom since before she'd been born, that night it was ready to boil over. Her uncle Victor had come to the great manor house for a surprise visit, but when she saw his grave face and the creases in his coat she knew it wasn't a social call. Her father sent her to the nursery with her sisters, and her mother put her infant brother in her arms.

"Be quiet," said Flora to her eldest daughter. "Be a good girl. I'll explain everything later."

Scarlet and Eleanor fell asleep readily enough, and little Ursula was too small to understand there was something wrong. Allegra sat up with the baby and waited, her ears straining to hear the murmur of her parents' voices below-stairs, but all she could hear was the creak of lumber and the whistling of the wind. The next she knew was her mother shutting the nursery door behind her.

Flora took the baby from her arms and said, "Pack quickly. We're going to visit your aunt in the mountains."

"When do we leave?" she asked, hugging herself in the pre-dawn cold.

"Now," said her mother. "Katie, go pack right now. I don't have time to argue."

She left her sisters to sleep and riffled herself through the clothing chest that they all shared. She bundled up dresses and petticoats and stockings, and managed to stuff in Scarlet's favorite doll and Ursula's little woolen lamb and even Ellie's favorite book. When she was done there was just a little room left in the satchel so she carefully folded a baby blanket over the tangle of clothes, closed the bag and buckled the leather straps tightly, to hold it all in. With all her strength she managed not to drag the satchel behind her, but lifted it up and carried it down the stairs.

Grandmother Katherine was waiting in the entrance hall, leaning on her cane and looking cross.

When she saw her, Allegra felt a weight lifting off her heart that she hadn't known was there.

"There you are, girl," said Katherine briskly.

She never called Allegra by her name, but she'd never minded much. She presented herself to her grandmother as she'd been taught, standing as straight as she could with her hands locked behind her back, the bag of clothing resting at her feet. She tried not to squirm when her grandmother scanned her closely, no doubt noticing that she was still wearing yesterday's dress, which she had apparently fallen asleep in.

"Do you remember your Aunt Geraldine?" she asked.

Allegra hesitated, but nodded once.

"That's right," said Katherine, "you can't have been older than three or four when she was last in this house."

"It was just after my fourth birthday," she answered, as boldly as only she could.

Katherine harrumphed, but didn't look too displeased, not like when she was glaring at Allegra's mother. "You'll meet her again, soon enough," she said. "You're going North, to the mountains where it's safe. The abbey will give you refuge, they've never turned anyone away, and you're to stay put there until further notice."

Allegra nodded her comprehension, but her mind was racing, trying to piece together what was left unsaid.

"Your mother will meet you there once everything is settled," Katherine went on.

She was too smart to bother asking what 'everything' was.

"Your father, of course," said Katherine, "will do his duty and remain here at the estate. As will I."

"You're not coming with us, Grandmother?" asked Allegra, swallowing down a lump of panic that rose in her throat.

Katherine frowned and shifted her cane from one hand to the other. "I birthed your father in this very house, Allegra," she said, "and five other children besides. If I'm to die, it will be on this land and nowhere else."

She thought about the fact that her grandmother never usually called her by name, and didn't ask why she thought she might be dying, here in Arrowfield or anywhere else. _When will I see you again?_ she wanted to ask, but quashed the thought.

Her father came in from the parlor then, followed by her uncle Victor wearing a fresh uniform, his coat newly pressed and the brass buttons shining like gilt. Her father knelt down on one knee beside her, hugged her close and kissed her forehead.

"Be a good girl, Katie," he whispered, so softly she almost thought she imagined it.

"There, now," said Victor, trying for a smile despite the heavy shadows under his eyes. "Do you like horses, little Katie? I hope you do. You'll be riding North with me, just as soon as you can get your cloak and boots on, so run along now and go find them."

She knew exactly where her cloak was, where she'd put it away alongside her sisters'. Rushing up the stairs to the nursery, obedient as ever, she ground to a sudden halt when she saw one of the maids coming down the hall with little Ursula in her arms. Ellie held on to her free hand, and Scarlet held on to Ellie. Behind them was Flora, her face tear-stained, cradling the baby.

Eleanor stopped walking and dug her heels in. The maid tugged on her hand, and so did Scarlet, but she was having none of it.

"Mama," said Ellie, "ithn't Katie coming with uth?"

"Hush, darling," said Flora, her voice thick. "Katie's going to visit with Aunt Geraldine at the abbey. She's a big girl now."

"I'm a big girl, too!" said Scarlet, dropping Ellie's hand and crossing her own over her chest.

"Darling, no," said Flora, sniffling. "Please don't make trouble now, of all times. Mother's not had much sleep, and we have a long way to go, yet."

Ursula pulled her thumb out of her mouth and said, "Why, Mama?"

Flora looked as though she might burst into tears then and there.

Allegra pulled her hands into fists and propped them on her hips, as she'd seen the cook do so many times when one of the girls snuck into the kitchen to beg for a cookie. She tried to make her face look like Katherine's, from memory, and put the same steel into her voice, and said, "Girls, go with Mama and don't make trouble."

Ellie tilted her head thoughtfully, while Scarlet simply stared at her with round green eyes.

"Okie," said Ursula simply, and popped her thumb back in her mouth.

She sighed inwardly, and her mother outwardly, in relief. Along with the maid she tugged the whole procession down the hall and the stairs and out the door. Allegra didn't stand and watch but rushed back into the nursery, now empty and eerily quiet, to quickly pull on her cloak and boots. She didn't want to go riding in slippers, even if she'd be riding in front of her uncle's saddle on his big military charger, and she knew the mountains must be cold. Colder than Arrowfield in the winter.

Maybe there would be snow.

* * *

Three days later, they were at the Abbey of Sacred Dawn. Dark, heavy fir trees crowded the landscape, and the mountainsides that showed under the coat of greenery looked knife-sharp. In the distance she could see rolling hills, and past them, the patchwork fields where she'd come from. Victor had lifted her from his horse and set her down in front of the great wooden doors. When he knocked a novice opened a smaller door, set into the side of the large one. He handed her Allegra and a note that was addressed to Sister Geraldine, then mounted his charger and rode thundering down the narrow mountain road.

The novice regarded her first skeptically, then later with a scowl when she chose to explain to her that the letter was addressed to her aunt, Geraldine Chase. Whether she could read or not, she did not want to appear illiterate, certainly not to a girl of eight. She shepherded her into the abbey and left her standing at attention before an imposing closed door.

When the door opened, she shuffled in as quietly as the soles of her boots would allow.

An elderly woman was sitting at an enormous wooden desk, her elbows perched upon it and her long, thin fingers steepled in front of her face.

Allegra stood straighter and watched her, trying to look as fearless as she knew she should be.

For a long while the abbess didn't speak at all, and a thin, cold line of worry crept down her back.

"And who, pray, are you?"

"I've come to see my aunt, Geraldine Chase," she answered, just as she'd been told to.

"That is not what I asked, child," said the abbess sternly.

"My name is Allegra Katherine Chase," she said. She thought about adding that her mother called her ' _Katie_ ', but she didn't think the abbess would be interested in her Mama's pet names.

"I see," said the abbess. "Well, Allegra Chase, I suppose it's a pleasure to meet you."

She _supposed_?

Just then a knock on the door interrupted them.

"Yes, come in," said the abbess curtly.

The woman in the doorway was tall and thin, with a dark, narrow, angular face and dark eyes. She wore a nun's habit and her hair, underneath the white wimple, looked straight and inky black. Her dark eyes searched the room and landed squarely on Allegra, creasing in the corners to form an unpleasant frown.

"There you are, you little hellion," she said. "Terribly sorry, Mother Gertrude, I didn't know my niece was loitering here, intruding on your time. It won't happen again."

Mother Gertrude looked up at her. "I see," she said. "Sister Geraldine, I take it this child is in fact your niece, as she says?"

"Yes, Mother Gertrude," said her aunt.

"Find her a place in the dormitories," said the abbess. "She's not quite old enough to join the novices, but she can take their morning lessons and I trust she's clever enough to keep herself occupied the rest of the time."

"Yes, Mother," said her aunt.

"And see to it she has a bath, and is more reasonably clothed."

Geraldine rushed her out of the room with a hand on her back and shut the door behind them, looking this way and that. "You've come without much excess baggage."

"Yes," said Allegra. There was not much else she could say. Her other dress was packed into the satchel that went with her mother and sisters.

"Well," said Geraldine, her hands going straight to her hips. She gnawed on her lip a moment, and then said, "I'll show you where the laundry is, they can give you something from the novices' clothes. You'll need the hem taken in, of course, but this is as good a time as any for you to learn how to sew."

"Yes," said Allegra.

Geraldine frowned. "Remind me, what nonsense name did your mother's fancy saddle you with?"

She bristled, but kept her temper. "My name is Allegra."

"Allegra." She humphed, but shook her head. "I suppose that isn't as bad as all that. Bit fanciful."

They stood and stared at each other for a moment.

"Well," said Geraldine at last, sticking out her hand for Allegra to take, "come with me. On our way there you can tell me if my brothers have anything to say for themselves, for a change. I understand Victor rode you up here, then turned tail and ran before anyone could speak with him. Typical, isn't it? He's always been afraid of nuns."


	4. Geraldine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she returned from Sacred Dawn, Allegra's mother had a surprise for her.

“How long were you at Sacred Dawn?” he asked.

“About two years,” answered Allegra. “Mama was there with me, most of the time. I spent more time with Aunt Geraldine than with her, though. She was always getting letters from my father and uncle, and...”

“And she left you there alone?” asked Clarmont.

“It was after my tenth birthday, I think,” said Allegra. “We didn’t celebrate birthdays at the convent, of course. My father wrote to her and she said she had to leave. She said she would send for me when things were quiet, and the whole family would be together again.”

“And is that what happened?” asked Clarmont.

Allegra sighed. “Well, more or less.”

 

* * *

 

In the abbey, the war was spoken of very little. Allegra spent most of her time with the novices, who were all at least three or four years older than her, and had their heads deep in their studies or in the concerns of budding adolescence. She saw her aunt at prayers and sometimes when she called for her and took her on an evening walk through the herb garden. Her face was usually creased with worry, but she seemed to know very little of what occurred outside the abbey's walls. Or so Allegra determined after vainly attempting, several times, to question her. Geraldine would scowl and clam up and go on about what things were suitable for little girls to know, and Allegra could only calm her by promising yet again to be quiet, obedient, and diligent in her studies.

And she was all those things. She studied history and mathematics with the older girls in the mornings, and in the afternoon she learned how to sew and mend under the tutelage of the abbey's grumpy old seamstress. If she occasionally satisfied her ravenous curiosity by listening at the cracks of doors, well, no one could fault her unless they could catch her. While the novices and most of the sisters took little enough interest in the affairs of the greater kingdom, the abbess Mother Gertrude certainly kept abreast of news from the capital, as best she could. Allegra couldn't fail to notice that Mother Gertrude consulted her knowledge with only a few intimates among the sisters, nor that her aunt was not one of those.

"The girls know what king to name in their evening prayers," she'd overheard Mother Gertrude say, one day, "and that's all they need to know of the situation."

"What if they ask me about it?" asked Sister Edith. "Am I to lie to them, or tell them about...?"

"Tell them nothing they don't need to know," said Mother Gertrude sharply. "They're most of them smart enough or docile enough to shut their mouths and do as they're told. They might as well learn the trick of it now, it'll be useful to them."

"Mother...?" asked Sister Edith hesitantly.

Allegra chose that moment to slip away down the corridor and get back to her sewing lessons. She was never quite sure whether the abbess truly knew she was there, or if she only imagined it.

After that, things unfolded exactly as Mother Gertrude had predicted. Every night they prayed to God to give the King good health and long life, and only the name had changed. It seemed to Allegra that no one but her was curious as to why the old King was dead, or why the Crown Prince had not succeeded him, or how the war had begun to start with. In her history lessons, she read about the long war and the great peace that followed, and wondered whether Revaire's neighboring kingdoms knew that the country was again at war, all these years later. These thoughts she quickly learned to keep to herself.

And as Mother Gertrude had predicted, it was indeed a skill that would prove most useful to her throughout her life.

It was some time after this when Lady Flora's patience finally cracked. She could not abide being isolated even one day longer. She must have news of the world, when it was still new, and not as stale, weeks-old gossip. She missed her children, her younger daughters and little baby son. And above all, she missed her husband. Allegra listened outside the door, for once not needing to sneak or eavesdrop, as Lady Flora explained all this to the abbess in the highest fever pitch. Mother Gertrude's reply must have come at a more temperate volume, since she couldn't make that part out. If her aunt hadn't been standing right there, she might've gotten away with pressing her ear to the door.

Lady Flora stormed out of the abbess's rooms, letting the door slam shut behind her.

She knelt beside her daughter and said, "Darling, I'll be riding out to Arrowfield, first thing tomorrow morning."

Allegra said the first thing that came to mind. "Is it safe?"

Flora laughed nervously. "Of course I won't really be riding the whole way," she said. "I can hire a carriage in town. But you mustn't fear, darling."

"I'm not afraid," said Allegra.

Flora ignored her interjection and carried on. "You mustn't fear. We won't be apart for long. Your father and I will send for you soon enough, just as soon as the estate's affairs are in order, and then we'll write to Aunt Henrietta. Soon, we'll have the whole family together again, I promise."

"Yes, Mama," said Allegra.

There was hardly anything else she could say.

 

* * *

 

Some months later, Sister Geraldine received leave from the abbess to spend two weeks away from the Abbey of the Sacred Dawn, at her brother's estate in Wellmark. She would escort her niece home, remain for an additional week's leave, and then return to take her place at the abbey again.

Allegra couldn't quite tell how her aunt felt about these proceedings.

"Do you think Uncle Victor will be there?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Geraldine, stuffing another skirt into a worn leather satchel. "You must take these things with you, you know, even if they're not very glamorous for a little lady of ten years old. Your old things won't fit you."

"I know," said Allegra patiently. "Will my sisters be there?"

"Henrietta wrote to say that they'll be keeping the children until the end of summer," said Geraldine. "Apparently your sisters and your cousins have grown quite close."

"Oh," said Allegra.

Geraldine looked up sharply. "They won't have forgotten you so quickly, I should think," she said, and then amended, "well, the older ones shan't have."

"I don't suppose the baby remembers me very well," said Allegra. "He was so young when we left home."

"You'll get reacquainted quickly enough," said her aunt. "Children are adaptable."

It occurred to Allegra that her aunt was not including her in that statement.

 

* * *

 

When they arrived, Grandmother Katherine was waiting for them on the veranda.

"Good," she said, as brusquely as ever she had done, "you're here."

"Mother," said Geraldine curtly. "I brought her back in one piece."

"So you did," said her grandmother, looking Allegra over with a keen eye. "Girl, go upstairs and wash up. Your aunt and I have things to discuss."

At the abbey, she would have been tempted to dawdle and try to overhear, but two years were not long enough a time to dull the memory of her grandmother's ire. She rushed through the double doors into the house and up the stairs to the nursery. The house was curiously empty, but the room was just as she had left it. A little neater, perhaps, than her hasty packing on that morning long ago would warrant. And in the nursery were the beds, the bookcase, the toy box, the wash stand which was made low enough for the bigger children to reach. And her mother, Lady Flora Chase of Arrowfield, wearing a loose linen kirtle over her big, pregnant belly and smiling radiantly at her eldest daughter.

"Katie!" she said brightly. "Have I got a surprise for you! Can you guess what it is, darling?"

"Mama!" said Allegra, dismayed.

Flora frowned. "What's the matter, Katie? Aren't you happy to see us? Soon, you'll have a brand new baby brother."

"Or sister," she corrected.

Her mother flapped a hand dismissively. "Oh, I suppose it could be a girl, but really, we've had four little girls already, and only one son. It only makes sense that it'll be a baby boy."

Allegra was almost certain that it didn't work that way, but her mother had the prior experience, so she didn't dare try to argue.

"Won't you say anything else, Katie?" asked her mother. "Aren't you excited to meet the new baby? It's my present to you, for all the time we've been forced apart. Soon, we'll all be a family again."

She nodded slowly. "Of course I'm excited. When is the baby due?"

Flora frowned. "Oh, in six weeks or so, I think. Your Papa is keeping track of the dates. He's so much better than me at numbers, you know. Just like you, Katie." She smiled again, but she looked tired.

"Does Papa know when the children will get home?" asked Allegra.

"Why don't you go and ask him, darling?" suggested her mother. "He's in the library. Mama's just going to go and lie down for a little bit. I'm very tired, suddenly."

With no more preamble than that, she disappeared down the hall to her bedroom. Allegra looked at the empty nursery and sighed. Peeping out into the hallway, she saw that it was empty. Grandmother Katherine was still outside. She dashed down the main staircase and found her way to the big old library, where her father could usually be found at his old, polished walnut-wood desk.

She burst into the room breathlessly.

Oswald Chase was reclining in a deep leather chair by the fireplace. He looked up from the letter he was reading and smiled. "Katie!"

"Papa!" said Allegra, just barely containing herself from throwing herself into his lap. She was too old for such antics, now. Instead she paused, and gave a small, neat curtsy.

"Now then," said her father, setting aside the letter in his hand. "That's no kind of greeting, is it? I haven't seen you in two years, and you've grown so big! Come here."

He opened his arms wide and all her resolve bled away. She flung herself into her father's arms and he wrapped her up in a big hug.

"Did you see your Mama yet?" asked Oswald.

Allegra nodded mutely.

"Then you've heard our big news." He sounded proud.

She pulled back slightly and looked up at him with wide eyes. "Another baby, Papa?" she asked. "Is that wise?"

He laughed softly. "My little Katie, always so business-minded," he said. "You're not at that awful convent anymore. You're home now, and you can leave all such practical matters to your parents to know best. I know you're getting older, darling, but can't you stay my little girl for just a while longer?"

Allegra thought this over and cautiously nodded. "I guess I could."

He kissed the top of her head.

Suddenly she remembered the reason she had been sent to the library to begin with. "Papa, when will the other children get home?"

Oswald smiled and retrieved the letter he'd been reading. "Good news, Katie," he said. "I've just had word from your Aunt Henrietta. Scarlet and the other children will be home within the week. And you know what else?"

"What?" she asked.

"When they get home," said her father, "you and Scarlet will both be moving out of the nursery and into your own room. You're old enough now, and we must make room for the new baby, after all."

She smiled and tried her best to keep up with her father's infectious cheer. "Ellie will probably be jealous," she said. "She and Scarlet are barely a year apart."

Her father laughed. "I'll have to bribe her with some new lessons," he said. "Your aunt writes that she's taken an interest in mathematics, of all things. Hettie never had a head for numbers, you know. I think Ellie would much rather learn figures from her own Papa, don't you think?"

"She probably would," agreed Allegra.

 

* * *

 

Only Allegra was allowed in the birthing chamber with her mother, grandmother and the midwives. Scarlet fussed and complained, until Grandmother Katherine silenced her crying with a single withering look. She was too young to stay up so late, and she was to take her sisters and go directly to bed like a good, obedient girl. As Allegra was the oldest, she was permitted to stay awake much later in the night than she would ordinarily have been allowed. She needed, her grandmother insisted, to see for herself what the duties of a noble lady entailed, even if she would not be called upon to perform those duties for years, yet.

"But what about me, Katie?" asked Scarlet tearfully, as Allegra tucked her and Ellie into the big bed in their new shared room.

"You're only seven, Scarlet," said Allegra severely. "You're too young to stay up past your curfew."

"But I'm a lady, too!" she insisted. "Won't I be called upon to perform my duty, like you will? How will I know what to do?"

"When the time comes, I promise I'll be right there in the room with you," said Allegra in her most soothing voice.

She didn't add that Scarlet may yet have the opportunity to witness their mother giving birth in the future. She didn't think it would make much difference to Scarlet right now. Scarlet fussed for a little while longer, but eventually consented to be tucked in next to Ellie, and was sound asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Allegra envied her, a little. Attending her mother in the birthing chamber was a solemn responsibility, and she was proud to accept it, but she knew she would be very tired before the night was over and she could go to sleep herself. Just then, the softness and warmth of her own made bed seemed much more important than some vague notion of responsibility.

That night, Allegra began to understand why her mother had looked so exhausted when she'd first seen her, the morning after Nicholas's birth. The midwives had their hands full, not only attending to the physical process of the birth, but also to the emotions of the lady of the house, which were running very high indeed. Not once and not twice, Flora fell back on the pillows and declared that she couldn't take anymore, she couldn't do it, that the baby would have to find some other way into the world. Allegra thought that Grandmother Katherine would scold her, as she did the children when they complained, but she just sat back and let the midwives gently coax and encourage Flora to keep trying.

If she'd had any idea that her mother could be so easily managed, she would have tried it herself, years ago.

All that was rapidly swept away when the baby finally broke out into the air of the world. There was a bustle of activity as the younger midwives opened the windows and aired out the linen, while the most experienced among them took the infant aside to wash it in a small basin. Allegra heard a small, high wail, and resisted the temptation to try and peek around the big woman at the tiny, squealing creature she was holding. When she brought the baby back, it was washed and wrapped in a soft white blanket, its little red face all wrinkled and eyes screwed up as though it would start to cry again at the drop of a hat.

"Milady," said the midwife to Flora, "you have a beautiful baby girl."

Flora was lying limp against the bedsheets, and hardly stirred at the sound of her voice.

The midwife exchanged a look with Lady Katherine, and the latter jabbed her chin once in Allegra's direction. The midwife nodded, and presented the wrapped infant to the girl sitting beside her.

"You've held a baby before, haven't you, dear?" she asked kindly.

Allegra nodded and help out her arms to accept the baby girl. "They wanted a boy," she said to the midwife.

Lady Katherine harrumphed, but the midwife only nodded and smiled sadly.

"They always do," she said.

"Should I take her to show to Papa," asked Allegra of her grandmother, "or will he come up here?"

"Your father can see the child when he wakes," said Lady Katherine. "For now, she needs to sleep, and so do you."

There was time for her to snatch a few hours' sleep next to her sisters before the maids woke her up to dress for breakfast. The three of them sat quietly at the table, hands folded in their laps, and waited for their father to appear. Not long after, the nurses came in, bringing the two younger children with them. Little Ursula climbed up to her seat next to Allegra with very little fuss, regarding her silently exactly as she used to do from her big, dark eyes. But baby Nicholas was different. He didn't seem to recognize her at all, and was still shy around her even after a week's worth of breakfasts and dinners together. Allegra resolved that she would go into the nursery when she wasn't busy with her own lessons. If she read to Ursula like she used to, maybe he would get used to the sound of her voice.

"Papa!" exclaimed Scarlet loudly, perking up in her seat.

Their father entered the room looking distracted, and went round the table, kissing each of his children in turn. Scarlet preened under the attention, while Ursula endured it with stoic silence and baby Nicky squirmed. Allegra turned her face up dutifully to his paternal kiss.

"Have you seen the baby, Papa?" she asked, hands still folded in her lap.

"I have, Katie," he replied, "and I heard that you were a very good girl while you were taking care of your mother last night. Your grandmother and I are both very proud of her."

Allegra tried to picture Lady Katherine Chase telling her that she was very proud of her for sitting still all night, but her imagination was not up to the task.

"What's his name, Papa?" asked Scarlet.

"It was going to be Gerald, darling," said Oswald, "but your mother went and had another little girl. You have a baby sister."

Allegra caught on to his line of thought immediately. "Geraldine, then," she said. "Grandmother will be pleased."

 

* * *

 

"So that makes Scarlet, Eleanor, Ursula, Nicholas, and now Geraldine," said Clarmont.

"Exactly right," said Allegra, smiling. "For now."

He sighed. "And how many of them will be meeting us in Port Indigo, did you say?" he asked.

"I didn't," she replied. "Only Scarlet, most likely. She wrote me before I left that she had some news she wanted to discuss in person. Nicholas and Eleanor are probably both busy trying to keep our father from bankrupting the estate again."

" _ _Again__?" said Clarmont, alarmed.

Allegra blithely went on. "Ursa has her own affairs, you know. She's always been terribly secretive. And Gigi -- Geraldine -- she just up and decided one day that we all had to call her Gigi, you know-- well, she hates to be separated from the younger boys, especially Oswald. I would be very surprised if she left the estate without them."

"So I'll finally get to meet one of the legendary Chase sisters," said Clarmont.

"Be grateful you're meeting them one at a time," said Allegra. "Otherwise they should have descended on you like a pack of ravenous gossip wolves."

"Are gossip wolves native to Arrowfield?" he asked earnestly. "I've never seen them, myself."

"They're an invasive species," she replied crisply.


	5. The Big Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "[Y]our first, and perhaps last, moment of true, uncomplicated, naive happiness."

It seemed that Allegra would have to keep her promise to her sister sooner rather than later. Scarlet’s “big news” that she had mentioned in her last letter was immediately obvious when Allegra spotted her standing in the crowd at the docks. She was wearing a large emerald green coat and a ribbon-covered hat, both of which rippled slightly in the brisk wind, but held impressively fast to their owner. If she thought the coat would hide her state she was sorely mistaken, and Allegra was just about to march right through the crowd and tell her so in person. She was interrupted in this intent by the sound of an ear-splitting shriek.

Ria, who was standing beside her with a battered leather satchel in either hand, ducked discreetly behind her.

"It's all right, Ria," said Allegra. "It's not a monster, or at least not much of one."

Any moment now, she would finally be able to introduce--

The shriek recurred, at a much shorter distance. A figure clad in bright yellow burst out of the crowd and flung itself in her direction. Ria squeaked and leaped back a step, clutching the smaller satchel to her chest, her blue eyes big and bright with dismay. Without missing a beat, Allegra caught the flying yellow parcel, wrapping both arms tightly around it. Coils of dark hair whipped in the briny wind, some of them flying right into her face and eyes.

"Please calm yourself," said Allegra. "You're alarming Ria."

Over her shoulder, Allegra could see Scarlet catching up to them both at a more ponderous pace. Was it the bright ribbons of her hat that made her face glow like that? No, she must be farther along than she even hinted at, Allegra decided.

"Welcome home," said Scarlet, bright-eyed and barely concealing a laugh.

At the sound of her voice, Gigi detached herself from her eldest sister and, with great dignity, whipped the tangled hair out of her face, knotting it into a loose, untidy bun on the back of her neck. That done, she turned an accusing face and sharply pointed finger on Scarlet.

"See?" she said. "I __told__ you she would replace us."

"She did not replace us," said Scarlet calmly. "Did you, Katie?"

Allegra huffed. "I most certainly did not."

Gigi rounded on her. "Oh? Didn't you? Then how do you explain __her__?" She pointed her finger at Ria, who was still half-hidden behind Allegra's back.

"Oh," said Scarlet. "Hello. How do you do?"

"Scarlet!" cried Gigi. "Don't be nice to her, you ninny! Katie's gone and brought home a replacement sister!"

"Ria?" asked Allegra mildly. "Is that who you mean?"

Gigi looked back to her, her brown eyes huge and damp, her lower lip quivering.

"My maid, Ria?" asked Allegra patiently.

"As I said," Scarlet repeated, "welcome home. Everything is just as you left it."

"So I see," replied Allegra, raising a single eyebrow in Gigi's direction.

She had just enough grace to blush and twiddle her big toe.

"Everything but one thing, that is," said Allegra, turning her gaze back on Scarlet. "How far along are you?"

"Twenty weeks, I think," said Scarlet, chewing her lip. "I'll be obliged to make the announcement, soon. People have already started asking, and not just the neighborhood busybodies."

"Does Iulin know?" asked Allegra.

She nodded mutely, still nibbling on her lip.

"I'll have to make plans, then," said Allegra. "More plans. But first, let's get out of this miserable wind, before Gigi's hair becomes truly unsalvageable. I have an introduction of my own to make, you know."

Scarlet's ears perked. "I heard the rumors, but I almost couldn't countenance it."

"Yeah," agreed Gigi. "Didn't you say you were leaving Revaire for good?"

Allegra laughed. "As if I could ever truly leave you behind, you little miscreant. Have you been giving Eleanor hell the whole time I was gone?"

"I behaved myself perfectly," said Gigi, with a perfectly earnest face.

Allegra glanced sidelong at Scarlet, who merely shrugged.

"Before you get back to managing the family, Katie," said Scarlet, "do try to get some rest. If that summit of yours was half as busy as your letters made it out to be, I would bet anything you haven't had a decent night's sleep in two months."

"You exaggerate," said Allegra.

"I knew it!" said Scarlet. "You're hopeless, Katie. Always working, always cooking up some scheme. You'd never have any fun if it weren't for me."

"So you have often told me," said Allegra, but she couldn't help but crack a smile.

Scarlet had always had that effect on people.

"So tell me about this man," asked Scarlet. "It is a man, isn't it? I wouldn't put it past you to bring home a bride for Dawnview, you dreadful thing."

"Will we be meeting him today?" Gigi demanded to know. "I can't wait. I think I'll die of curiosity."

Allegra just let the two's chatter wash over her benignly. They'd learn all they could possibly want to know, soon enough.

 

* * *

 

 

Allegra was twelve and Scarlet nine when the first snowstorm of their lifetime struck Arrowfield. It arrived at the culmination of a week’s worth of occasional flurries, snatches of white fluttering in the agitated wind, only to melt almost as soon as they fell to the ground. For Flora and Oswald Chase it was a long and anxious week, where everything that could possibly go wrong, did. For once, though, their eldest daughter was left out of the hubbub. While her mother was crying in the antechamber and her father poring over endless angry columns of numbers in his library, their three eldest daughters were outside, celebrating the wild, outrageous occasion of snowfall.

It was Scarlet, of course, who dragged them both outside, towing one in each hand with a refrained cry of, “Come _on_ , Katie, quickly! Before it disappears!”

Little Ursula would not be towed. She stuck fast to her position by the toy box, where she was gravely arranging wooden blocks in arcane patterns that only she understood. Nicky was too young and the babies were with the nurses, who could not be persuaded to set foot outside in such inclement weather conditions. From the lofty visage of their seventeen years, the novelty of the damp white flakes had long ago worn off.

So it was only the three eldest daughters who spent a brief, careless hour that afternoon, catching snowflakes in their hands or on their tongues. The flakes melted too quickly to get a proper look at them, but Ellie had seen their shapes illustrated in one of Papa’s books. She was only too eager to describe them to her elder sisters, in her long-winded, lisping way.

“I should make you teach the little ones how to read,” said Allegra offhandedly, not thinking about it too much.

“Oh, _yeth_!” said Ellie immediately. “Yeth, pleathe, Katie, may I? May I _pleathe_?”

Scarlet laughed. “Do you really think that’s a good idea, Katie?”

Ellie scowled and punched her shoulder with her little fist.

“Girls!” said Allegra sharply. “Play nicely.”

All at once, the moment was over. Allegra shepherded the girls, over their protestations, back into the house. They were barefooted and bedraggled, and Lydee the housekeeper scolded them when they tracked in muddy footprints. She made all three of them stand in the anteroom, their limp, sodden dresses dripping little puddles on the floor, while she fetched a maid to clean up after them, and one of the nurses, to see them bathed and clothed afresh. With the thrill of adventure chased away by cold reality, Allegra shivered in the dark, unheated anteroom. Her feet felt like ice, and the puddles around them weren’t helping matters any.

“I’m cold,” complained Scarlet.

“Hush,” said Allegra. “It was your idea to go outside without coats or boots.”

“But Katie,” said Ellie, “we don’t _have_ bootth or coatth.”

“Then you shouldn’t have gone out in the snow at all,” said Lydee sternly.

The old housekeeper stood with her fists propped on her hips, glaring at them while the nurse led them away to the washroom behind the kitchen. Behind her, Allegra could glimpse one of the young maids kneeling, flattened to the floor, scrubbing at it with a horse-hair brush as big as her head. She turned away, not wanting to look at the three sets of muddy footprints that were following them, all across the front hall, through the kitchen and scullery, and into the washroom. At least the small room, which shared a wall with the bread oven, was warm even in the dead of winter.

The nurse, whose name Allegra did not yet remember, glared at them from over the rim of the copper tub while she scrubbed their feet clean. Her round, apple-cheeked face, however, lent the facade no consequence at all. Ellie squirmed when the brush was drawn over the soles of her feet, and Scarlet let out one undignified squeak before falling silent. Allegra, however, kept as still and stoic as Empress Berenike the Last facing the gallows, and her dark eyes did not budge an inch from the nurse’s watery blue ones.

“Mercy,” said the nurse. “You’re an uncanny one, aren’t you, little girl?”

“I’m twelve years old,” said Allegra, in the exact intonation in which Grandmother had said the same to her, on her last birthday. “I’m not a child anymore, but a young lady.”

“Then it would behoove you to behave like one,” said the nurse, “and not run around barefoot, getting your only good dress muddy.”

For a clear moment Allegra experienced both acute embarrassment and incandescent rage, in more or less equal measure. The only rejoinder she could conceive was to adapt an even stiffer aristocratic posture, raising her chin and keeping her eyes level with the nurse’s. Though she was taller, stronger, and older by years, the other girl looked away first, ducking her head to focus on scrubbing Allegra’s naked feet down even harder. Dead skin flaked off on the brush, and Allegra knew at once that the soles of her feet, and her hands as well, were not as soft and dainty as a lady’s should be.

The nurse, however, said nothing more until all three girls were dried off and put in fresh shifts and dresses.

“I haven’t time to comb or braid your hair,” she said, brushing her damp hands on her apron. “The little boys need me more than you do. You’ll have to do each other, and then go and quietly learn your lessons in the nursery until you’re called for dinner.”

Allegra nodded sharply, rendered mute by the tight knot in her middle, and grabbed each of the other girls tightly by the hand.

“You shouldn’t give your mother so much trouble,” said the nurse tiredly, just before they exited the kitchen. “You don’t know the half of what she’s dealing with, this week.”

While she was braiding Scarlet's hair, Allegra thought about what the nurse had said. She dredged her mind for anything she might have overheard and overlooked since last Sunday, which might give her a clue to what was troubling her mother. On Moonday her father had been jovial at dinner, and had hinted to Scarlet that she might get a new dress for spring, and new ribbons. Grandmother Katherine, who had lately been taking her dinner with the family most nights, snapped at him about counting chickens before they were hatched, and called him _boy_ , which he hated. Then she coughed heartily and called for mulled cider.

On Waterday Grandmother had not been at dinner at all, and Mama had cheerfully sent the older girls to the kitchen, to make up a basket for her. Allegra had sat in the warm kitchen, happily listening to the kitchen girl gossip with one of the stable boys, while the cook baked plum cake because it was the old lady's favorite. But Allegra had not been allowed to bring the basket to Grandmother herself. Instead, her mother sent one of the pages, and told him to stay at the small house until he was explicitly called back.

Mama was cheerful on Windday morning, and even more so when a bedraggled rider delivered a sealed letter into her hands, and she happily declared that it was from Uncle Victor, and she would read it to the whole family after dinner. But at dinner Grandmother was still absent, and no mention was made of a letter from anyone. Papa had none of his earlier joviality left, and his face was pale and drawn, with deep shadows under his eyes. After the dishes were cleared, he waved the maid away when she brought the brandy bottle, and sent all the children straight to bed, warning Ellie in particular not to keep the lamp on in the nursery and stay up late reading.

Ever since Earthday, he'd been shut in the library with his record books, and called for meals to be brought to him instead of joining the rest of the family at table.

Lydee's scolding had affected not only her, which Allegra first noticed when she saw both Ellie and Scarlet struggling to be silent, still and well-behaved at the dinner table. Mama called for wine twice, and picked at her dinner plate. When she noticed the lamp oil burning low, Allegra called for a maid herself and instructed her to clear the table and be quick about it, and went to fetch the nurse to help put the babies to sleep. Scarlet got up from the table of her own volition and, taking their mother by the hand, gently led her back to the lady's rooms, where her maid was surely waiting.

Once the children were asleep and the house quiet, Allegra undressed herself and joined Scarlet in their shared bedroom. She had glued her feet to the hot water bottle and was fast asleep. Ruthlessly, Allegra shook her shoulder.

Scarlet stirred. "Whazzit, Katie?" she blearily asked.

"Wake up and listen to me," said Allegra.

She opened her eyes.

"You have to be good," she said.

"Huh?" asked Scarlet, blinking sleepily.

"Grandmother is sick," said Allegra, "and Papa has been at the bookkeeping all week. He hasn't the money to pay the taxes, come spring. I think he might have made a bad investment again."

" _Again_?" asked Scarlet.

Allegra sighed. "And we got a letter from Uncle Victor, but Mama won't tell me what was in it."

That made her sit up straight in bed. "Are we at war?" she asked breathlessly.

Allegra shook her head. "I don't know, Scarlet."

She was silent for a long moment, until eventually Scarlet asked, "Does this mean I'm not getting a new dress for spring?"


End file.
